What do you think?
Rate this book
Israel: What Went Wrong?: Orwell Prize for Political Writing Finalist 2026
A leading genocide scholar explores the history of Zionism, Israel’s lurch towards extreme oppression and violence, and why it stands accused of crimes against humanity
'Essential' BOOKLIST
'Anyone disturbed and frightened by our current moral and intellectual morass should read it' PANKAJ MISHRA
Professor Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the Israel Defence Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become an expert on the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country.
In What Went Wrong?, Bartov explores the transformation of Zionism from a movement of Jewish emancipation and liberation into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians. He traces the process whereby Israel – whose establishment in 1948 received international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust – now faces accusations of war crimes and genocide.
What are the implications of Israel’s near total impunity for the post-1945 regime of international law? And how do we understand the widespread support for these policies by Israel’s Jewish citizens?
The result is a searing and urgent critique that addresses today’s debates over Zionism, genocide, and the future of Israel with rigour and depth.
'Essential' BOOKLIST
'Anyone disturbed and frightened by our current moral and intellectual morass should read it' PANKAJ MISHRA
Professor Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the Israel Defence Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become an expert on the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country.
In What Went Wrong?, Bartov explores the transformation of Zionism from a movement of Jewish emancipation and liberation into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians. He traces the process whereby Israel – whose establishment in 1948 received international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust – now faces accusations of war crimes and genocide.
What are the implications of Israel’s near total impunity for the post-1945 regime of international law? And how do we understand the widespread support for these policies by Israel’s Jewish citizens?
The result is a searing and urgent critique that addresses today’s debates over Zionism, genocide, and the future of Israel with rigour and depth.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 21, 2026
About the author
Omer Bartov
37 books89 followersOmer Bartov is an Israeli-born historian. He is the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, where he has taught since 2000. Bartov is a noted historian of the Holocaust and is considered one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of genocide.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
May 14, 2026
Zionism was never going to be bloodless, something even its 19th century architects understood. Israel: What Went Wrong? by Omer Bartov thinks it’s about Zionism losing a noble purpose—a home for Jews, for Jewish self-determination, a sea away from European antisemitism in the place where Judaism began—but it’s really his increasing comprehension of the ideology as it exists in practice. Never mind now the overflow of problems with ethno-states; I found this section, concluding Chapter I, telling:
The declaration lists lofty ideals, but the fact remains that “Israeli independence” meant depopulation and terrorism and massacre upon massacre upon massacre that Israel still tries to hide. These were labelled “battles”; something like Tantura is an exception only in that someone finally got the perpetrators boasting on camera. Since Bartov evokes the UN, UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 1948 stipulated that Israeli admittance into the organisation even hinged on the Palestinian right of return. Rabin, reliably characterised as a compromising peacemaker in Israeli circles—famously, oddly labelled the “Soldier of Peace”—inadvertently exemplifies the problem; Rabin fought in 1948, killing Palestinians and Egyptians, and actively engaged in ethnic cleansing. He even signed off on emptying Ramla and Lydda, in what became the Lydda Death March. The entire "peace process" died with the shooting (by a Zionist) of one man.
This book operates on several assumptions. One, that Israel does not occupy Palestinian land in Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, Safad, Beisan, etc., simultaneously noting that there was “military rule imposed on Israel’s Arab citizens between 1948 and 1966 even as vast tracts of their lands were confiscated by the state” (never mind that laws have continued to distinguish Palestinian citizens from their Jewish counterparts); in other words, that the State of Israel as it existed in 1948 is perfectly legitimate, and that Palestinian claims to the homes taken from them are not. Two, that Palestinian resistance groups, including religious one like Hamas, exist in a vacuum; no thought is given to what pressures, policies, history, or tragedies guaranteed their creation, or whether they have any moral legitimacy. Three, that “left-leaning, liberal” Israeli politics is not a relative term, that these “Israeli leftists” are not “progressive” only within the confines of Zionism. Four, that the actions taken by the occupier are as legitimate as those taken by the occupied, removed from their systemic context—that I am as much to blame for desperately stabbing the foot of the person pressing on my neck as the person pressing.
But this is a book light on syllogisms; I was taken aback by how Bartov neither pieces information together, nor challenges his assumptions. I would argue that Zionism was always pernicious; its founder Theodor Herzl infamously wrote to Cecil Rhodes to ask him to join, “Because it is something colonial.” Arthur Ruppin declared, “Zionism is the colonization of Palestine, the displacement of the Palestinian Arab people.” The terrorist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky (birth name: Vladimir; birthplace: Russia) wrote that, "The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them,” praising (in 1940) Hitler of all people for giving “this idea a good name in the world”. (I got this from Tom Segev’s One Palestine Complete.) Endless examples like this from Israel’s founders don’t shake Bartov’s belief in Zionism having ever been anything other than a bloody ideology, even as its consequences become increasingly apparent to him.
It goes deeper. For example, Chapter V is primarily concerned with Israel’s constitution, meaning why it lacks one. After giving broad strokes on the history, Bartov daydreams about its effects:
But earlier in the chapter, Bartov writes about the "Father of Israel" David Ben-Gurion opposing a constitution, noting even how the word "democratic" was struck from early drafts of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. On Ben-Gurion, Bartov writes, "When thinking of the limitations that were enforced on Israel's Palestinian citizens for decades after the establishment of the state, which curtailed these very freedoms, one cannot but assume that he never intended to include them in any document…the fact that Ben-Gurion issued a Declaration with no clear legal standing, and then blocked the adoption of a constitution, suggests that he intended the eloquent document largely to serve foreign policy and propaganda needs." This happened as Zionist terror groups were displacing Palestinians by the hundreds of thousands, with the 150,000 remaining placed under military rule.
The fantasy of what a constitution might have achieved sits unexamined beside the evidence of why one was blocked. Since Bartov is American-Israeli, I’ll note that that the American constitution and Bill of Rights, for all their celebrated guarantees, limited them to white men, a reminder that founding documents are not self-executing. Bartov never connects Ben-Gurion's bad faith politicking to the results on the ground.
The Supreme Court, always a prop for legitimising the occupation, has left unresolved whether the 1992 Basic Law applies to Palestinians in the West Bank at all, meaning millions under military occupation receive no constitutional protection, even as Bartov praises "their good intentions and importance". The Citizenship and Entry Law, restricting family reunification for Palestinians across the Green Line, was upheld by a court majority on security grounds despite a minority finding it violated dignity and equality. Human rights organisations challenged the Nakba Law (2011) on the grounds that it violated the 1992 Basic Law by suppressing Palestinian historical narrative, but the High Court declined to rule on its constitutionality—a decision criticised by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, who urged the law be annulled as "inherently discriminatory towards Palestinian citizens of Israel."
The Justice Aharon Barak (birthname: Erik Brick; birthplace: Lithuania) named in the quote argues for Israel's Basic Laws being a de facto constitution, stating that while "several human rights are missing from it...[Israel is] a constitutional democracy". The book even highlights the "much darker side to Barak's heroic struggle" to realise it, citing professional arguments at length criticising the Supreme Court for its rulings; Aharon's court is accused of creating apartheid in the West Bank. There are Justices on the court (the book names a few) who are also settlers.
So I ask: If the great champion of the constitution's hands are dirty, if Israel’s founder is using these documents as a way to placate the UN, if the laws are demonstrably not just exclusionary, but oppressive, why is Bartov daydreaming about how a constitution benefits the Palestinians? How is such a blatant paradox overlooked?
Furthermore, since Bartov praises the 1992 Basic Laws (he calls them "laudable"; I appreciate the wordplay), I have to address them. First is their resemblance to 1948: they were, again, useful for placating liberal-minded Westerners, never earmarked for implementation. But more pertinently, the laws were widely criticised for their structural failure to protect Palestinians equally. The UN Human Rights Committee found that the law "does not contain a general provision for equality and non-discrimination." Adalah notes that equality exists only through judicial interpretation, leaving Palestinians vulnerable to legal discrimination. This omission was deliberate: granting constitutional status to equality was blocked in part because it would threaten the Law of Return—granting Jews exclusive immigration rights while denying them to Palestinians. The laws also embedded a "Jewish and democratic" formula that structurally subordinated Palestinian rights; the limitation clause meant rights could be curtailed by any law "corresponding to the values of the State of Israel," allowing ethnically discriminatory legislation to withstand constitutional challenge. All Article 1C of the 2018 Basic Law did was make explicit what had been enacted in practice.
Some of these criticisms appear in passing in Bartov's book, but they never congeal into a whole. This failure to connect what he has outlined into a broader picture is pervasive. He realises that the Holocaust engendered a form of militarism among survivors that they brought over to Palestine, and he quotes an essay on how the latest onslaught has probably replenished Hamas with Palestinians taking arms against their occupiers, but the parallel between the two is never drawn. Bartov blames the 2018 Basic Law on the Netanyahu governments, conveniently overlooking precedent. Even as he discusses Zionism's European colonialist basis, manifested in "the resentment and generational bitterness of the Mizrahi community (primarily made up of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East) toward the Ashkenazi (European) elites, which is one of the main driving forces of Israeli politics to this day."
The book's also couched in Zionist vocabulary. 1948 is when "the war over Israel's independence broke out"; it's later described as "a full-scale civil war between Arabs and Jews throughout Palestine," even though the Zionists had come over from Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and elsewhere. Not once does the book account for Jewish Palestinians, even in the context of "the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine," thereby characterising Jews and Palestinians as mutually exclusive categories; the Yishuv are never identified as Arabs or Palestinians, their Jewishness overriding anything else, recycling the language of documents like the Peel Commission. Palestinians are prisoners, but Israelis are hostages. "Israel proper" is used four times. The term "sabra" is used to describe a "native son of eretz Israel" despite the family migrating to Palestine after centuries in Poland. The word "massacre" is always linked to October 7, never to 1948 or the seventy-eight years since. Even Deir Yassin, notable only for its infamy (but not its scale), is not mentioned once. There is an entire chapter on "never again" without a mention of Meir Kahane (birthname: Martin; birthplace: New York), who popularised the term but meant it exclusively for Jews—nor of the Kahanists, despite naming Itamar Ben Gvir twice and discussing settlers taking over the West Bank.
There are odd arguments, too. "The Palestinians ended up on the losing side, even as the Zionists perceived themselves as an embattled minority and the last remnant of a people hunted down and exterminated in their places of origin." This assumes that Zionists are Jews. Zionism originated in Europe; while Judaism did start in SWANA, Israel's founders came from elsewhere. "Ben-Gurion" (birth name: Grun) himself hails from Poland.
But the real point is that Zionist worries that “Israel had come to be perceived as an aggressor once it launched its self-declared war of self-defense” remain founded in myth. It is always at war. “Peace” is occupation, apartheid, refugee camps. “Peace” is militarisation, oppression, a slow death punctuated by daily killings, arrests, “administrative detention”, “price tag attacks”, burnings of fields, “settlers”. “Peace” is the occupier’s word; inevitably, liberation is the occupied’s. The form of that liberation has eluded political consensus since 1948, although, for my money, a one-state solution seems best.
What little I admire about the book is that it reads as a sincere attempt to manoeuvre through Zionism. But the result is the paradox of the liberal Zionist: Bartov seems on his way out of the ideology, but is too tethered to blaming Netanyahu—the state's longest-serving PM, winning five elections, in what I'm supposed to not see as a reflection of a "democratic country"'s desires—to see the root cause, which is Zionism itself. He may disparage the impossibility of reconciling liberal values with Zionism's foundational goal—maintaining a Jewish state through ethnic cleansing, occupation, and now genocide, even when "Jewish state" was a nebulous concept—but he never questions what 1948 says about his belief, despite all that happened. I would advise him to read Edward Said's The Question of Palestine, which addresses a litany of his concerns. Nonetheless, I finally understood liberal Zionism's obsession with Israel's missing constitution; it was the first time I saw the logic of its absence mattering to their account of what Israel is.
At a point, Bartov talks about how he was born in Israel, then had kids there; by the book’s end, he’s happy he’s become a grandfather to two children in Tel Aviv. As I was finishing the book, my last grandparent passed in a hospital bed; she was from Jaffa, now “annexed” into Tel Aviv, perhaps close to where his family lives. Three of my grandparents asked to be buried back home, something we couldn’t do for any of them anyhow; my grandmother wasn't conscious at the end to ask for it. But she did talk about it with the same wistful tone as my other grandparents, hailing from Jerusalem, Haifa, and Hebron.
All four of them witnessed the Nakba and a slew of other disasters imposed on them by Zionism; two later survived 1967, something my father also witnessed. One grandfather survived an Irgun bombing in Jerusalem, a terrorist organisation that never gets a mention in the book; my grandmother had soldiers pointing guns at her face at her front door. My mother and aunts were thrown outside windows so the neighbours could catch them. The cruelty of the legacy means I know of it only in fragments.
At the funeral, I found my thoughts turning to Bartov, to how, because of his ethnicity, he got to be in the place my family was chased from; because of their ethnicity, my grandparents were "removed". I only get to see it in photographs.
What happened to Israel? Zionism happened. It is as it always has been; today is the natural evolution of yesterday. So it will be, until someone removes their foot from a people’s neck, and says "enough".
I ask myself what would have happened had the newly created State of Israel realized the ideals articulated in its Declaration of Independence. That same Declaration stated that Israel “will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
During the few hopeful years of the Oslo peace process, people in Israel began speaking of making it into a “state of all its citizens,” Jews and Palestinians alike. The assassination of Rabin in 1995 put an end to that dream.
The declaration lists lofty ideals, but the fact remains that “Israeli independence” meant depopulation and terrorism and massacre upon massacre upon massacre that Israel still tries to hide. These were labelled “battles”; something like Tantura is an exception only in that someone finally got the perpetrators boasting on camera. Since Bartov evokes the UN, UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 1948 stipulated that Israeli admittance into the organisation even hinged on the Palestinian right of return. Rabin, reliably characterised as a compromising peacemaker in Israeli circles—famously, oddly labelled the “Soldier of Peace”—inadvertently exemplifies the problem; Rabin fought in 1948, killing Palestinians and Egyptians, and actively engaged in ethnic cleansing. He even signed off on emptying Ramla and Lydda, in what became the Lydda Death March. The entire "peace process" died with the shooting (by a Zionist) of one man.
This book operates on several assumptions. One, that Israel does not occupy Palestinian land in Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, Safad, Beisan, etc., simultaneously noting that there was “military rule imposed on Israel’s Arab citizens between 1948 and 1966 even as vast tracts of their lands were confiscated by the state” (never mind that laws have continued to distinguish Palestinian citizens from their Jewish counterparts); in other words, that the State of Israel as it existed in 1948 is perfectly legitimate, and that Palestinian claims to the homes taken from them are not. Two, that Palestinian resistance groups, including religious one like Hamas, exist in a vacuum; no thought is given to what pressures, policies, history, or tragedies guaranteed their creation, or whether they have any moral legitimacy. Three, that “left-leaning, liberal” Israeli politics is not a relative term, that these “Israeli leftists” are not “progressive” only within the confines of Zionism. Four, that the actions taken by the occupier are as legitimate as those taken by the occupied, removed from their systemic context—that I am as much to blame for desperately stabbing the foot of the person pressing on my neck as the person pressing.
But this is a book light on syllogisms; I was taken aback by how Bartov neither pieces information together, nor challenges his assumptions. I would argue that Zionism was always pernicious; its founder Theodor Herzl infamously wrote to Cecil Rhodes to ask him to join, “Because it is something colonial.” Arthur Ruppin declared, “Zionism is the colonization of Palestine, the displacement of the Palestinian Arab people.” The terrorist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky (birth name: Vladimir; birthplace: Russia) wrote that, "The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them,” praising (in 1940) Hitler of all people for giving “this idea a good name in the world”. (I got this from Tom Segev’s One Palestine Complete.) Endless examples like this from Israel’s founders don’t shake Bartov’s belief in Zionism having ever been anything other than a bloody ideology, even as its consequences become increasingly apparent to him.
It goes deeper. For example, Chapter V is primarily concerned with Israel’s constitution, meaning why it lacks one. After giving broad strokes on the history, Bartov daydreams about its effects:
Israel would have adhered to its Zionist ideology but adapted it to the rigid legal constraints of a bill of rights written into its constitution. This would have meant that the ideal sketched out by Justice Barak of equal rights for the state’s Arab citizens would have actually been followed, and that any laws and instructions contravening these rights, in such areas as employment, allocation of state funds for education, housing, land development and planning, and exclusion from most decision-making organs on the national and regional level, let alone the recent adoption of racist positions and practices toward the Arab minority, would have been struck down by the courts.
But earlier in the chapter, Bartov writes about the "Father of Israel" David Ben-Gurion opposing a constitution, noting even how the word "democratic" was struck from early drafts of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. On Ben-Gurion, Bartov writes, "When thinking of the limitations that were enforced on Israel's Palestinian citizens for decades after the establishment of the state, which curtailed these very freedoms, one cannot but assume that he never intended to include them in any document…the fact that Ben-Gurion issued a Declaration with no clear legal standing, and then blocked the adoption of a constitution, suggests that he intended the eloquent document largely to serve foreign policy and propaganda needs." This happened as Zionist terror groups were displacing Palestinians by the hundreds of thousands, with the 150,000 remaining placed under military rule.
The fantasy of what a constitution might have achieved sits unexamined beside the evidence of why one was blocked. Since Bartov is American-Israeli, I’ll note that that the American constitution and Bill of Rights, for all their celebrated guarantees, limited them to white men, a reminder that founding documents are not self-executing. Bartov never connects Ben-Gurion's bad faith politicking to the results on the ground.
The Supreme Court, always a prop for legitimising the occupation, has left unresolved whether the 1992 Basic Law applies to Palestinians in the West Bank at all, meaning millions under military occupation receive no constitutional protection, even as Bartov praises "their good intentions and importance". The Citizenship and Entry Law, restricting family reunification for Palestinians across the Green Line, was upheld by a court majority on security grounds despite a minority finding it violated dignity and equality. Human rights organisations challenged the Nakba Law (2011) on the grounds that it violated the 1992 Basic Law by suppressing Palestinian historical narrative, but the High Court declined to rule on its constitutionality—a decision criticised by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, who urged the law be annulled as "inherently discriminatory towards Palestinian citizens of Israel."
The Justice Aharon Barak (birthname: Erik Brick; birthplace: Lithuania) named in the quote argues for Israel's Basic Laws being a de facto constitution, stating that while "several human rights are missing from it...[Israel is] a constitutional democracy". The book even highlights the "much darker side to Barak's heroic struggle" to realise it, citing professional arguments at length criticising the Supreme Court for its rulings; Aharon's court is accused of creating apartheid in the West Bank. There are Justices on the court (the book names a few) who are also settlers.
So I ask: If the great champion of the constitution's hands are dirty, if Israel’s founder is using these documents as a way to placate the UN, if the laws are demonstrably not just exclusionary, but oppressive, why is Bartov daydreaming about how a constitution benefits the Palestinians? How is such a blatant paradox overlooked?
Furthermore, since Bartov praises the 1992 Basic Laws (he calls them "laudable"; I appreciate the wordplay), I have to address them. First is their resemblance to 1948: they were, again, useful for placating liberal-minded Westerners, never earmarked for implementation. But more pertinently, the laws were widely criticised for their structural failure to protect Palestinians equally. The UN Human Rights Committee found that the law "does not contain a general provision for equality and non-discrimination." Adalah notes that equality exists only through judicial interpretation, leaving Palestinians vulnerable to legal discrimination. This omission was deliberate: granting constitutional status to equality was blocked in part because it would threaten the Law of Return—granting Jews exclusive immigration rights while denying them to Palestinians. The laws also embedded a "Jewish and democratic" formula that structurally subordinated Palestinian rights; the limitation clause meant rights could be curtailed by any law "corresponding to the values of the State of Israel," allowing ethnically discriminatory legislation to withstand constitutional challenge. All Article 1C of the 2018 Basic Law did was make explicit what had been enacted in practice.
Some of these criticisms appear in passing in Bartov's book, but they never congeal into a whole. This failure to connect what he has outlined into a broader picture is pervasive. He realises that the Holocaust engendered a form of militarism among survivors that they brought over to Palestine, and he quotes an essay on how the latest onslaught has probably replenished Hamas with Palestinians taking arms against their occupiers, but the parallel between the two is never drawn. Bartov blames the 2018 Basic Law on the Netanyahu governments, conveniently overlooking precedent. Even as he discusses Zionism's European colonialist basis, manifested in "the resentment and generational bitterness of the Mizrahi community (primarily made up of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East) toward the Ashkenazi (European) elites, which is one of the main driving forces of Israeli politics to this day."
The book's also couched in Zionist vocabulary. 1948 is when "the war over Israel's independence broke out"; it's later described as "a full-scale civil war between Arabs and Jews throughout Palestine," even though the Zionists had come over from Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and elsewhere. Not once does the book account for Jewish Palestinians, even in the context of "the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine," thereby characterising Jews and Palestinians as mutually exclusive categories; the Yishuv are never identified as Arabs or Palestinians, their Jewishness overriding anything else, recycling the language of documents like the Peel Commission. Palestinians are prisoners, but Israelis are hostages. "Israel proper" is used four times. The term "sabra" is used to describe a "native son of eretz Israel" despite the family migrating to Palestine after centuries in Poland. The word "massacre" is always linked to October 7, never to 1948 or the seventy-eight years since. Even Deir Yassin, notable only for its infamy (but not its scale), is not mentioned once. There is an entire chapter on "never again" without a mention of Meir Kahane (birthname: Martin; birthplace: New York), who popularised the term but meant it exclusively for Jews—nor of the Kahanists, despite naming Itamar Ben Gvir twice and discussing settlers taking over the West Bank.
There are odd arguments, too. "The Palestinians ended up on the losing side, even as the Zionists perceived themselves as an embattled minority and the last remnant of a people hunted down and exterminated in their places of origin." This assumes that Zionists are Jews. Zionism originated in Europe; while Judaism did start in SWANA, Israel's founders came from elsewhere. "Ben-Gurion" (birth name: Grun) himself hails from Poland.
But the real point is that Zionist worries that “Israel had come to be perceived as an aggressor once it launched its self-declared war of self-defense” remain founded in myth. It is always at war. “Peace” is occupation, apartheid, refugee camps. “Peace” is militarisation, oppression, a slow death punctuated by daily killings, arrests, “administrative detention”, “price tag attacks”, burnings of fields, “settlers”. “Peace” is the occupier’s word; inevitably, liberation is the occupied’s. The form of that liberation has eluded political consensus since 1948, although, for my money, a one-state solution seems best.
What little I admire about the book is that it reads as a sincere attempt to manoeuvre through Zionism. But the result is the paradox of the liberal Zionist: Bartov seems on his way out of the ideology, but is too tethered to blaming Netanyahu—the state's longest-serving PM, winning five elections, in what I'm supposed to not see as a reflection of a "democratic country"'s desires—to see the root cause, which is Zionism itself. He may disparage the impossibility of reconciling liberal values with Zionism's foundational goal—maintaining a Jewish state through ethnic cleansing, occupation, and now genocide, even when "Jewish state" was a nebulous concept—but he never questions what 1948 says about his belief, despite all that happened. I would advise him to read Edward Said's The Question of Palestine, which addresses a litany of his concerns. Nonetheless, I finally understood liberal Zionism's obsession with Israel's missing constitution; it was the first time I saw the logic of its absence mattering to their account of what Israel is.
At a point, Bartov talks about how he was born in Israel, then had kids there; by the book’s end, he’s happy he’s become a grandfather to two children in Tel Aviv. As I was finishing the book, my last grandparent passed in a hospital bed; she was from Jaffa, now “annexed” into Tel Aviv, perhaps close to where his family lives. Three of my grandparents asked to be buried back home, something we couldn’t do for any of them anyhow; my grandmother wasn't conscious at the end to ask for it. But she did talk about it with the same wistful tone as my other grandparents, hailing from Jerusalem, Haifa, and Hebron.
All four of them witnessed the Nakba and a slew of other disasters imposed on them by Zionism; two later survived 1967, something my father also witnessed. One grandfather survived an Irgun bombing in Jerusalem, a terrorist organisation that never gets a mention in the book; my grandmother had soldiers pointing guns at her face at her front door. My mother and aunts were thrown outside windows so the neighbours could catch them. The cruelty of the legacy means I know of it only in fragments.
At the funeral, I found my thoughts turning to Bartov, to how, because of his ethnicity, he got to be in the place my family was chased from; because of their ethnicity, my grandparents were "removed". I only get to see it in photographs.
What happened to Israel? Zionism happened. It is as it always has been; today is the natural evolution of yesterday. So it will be, until someone removes their foot from a people’s neck, and says "enough".
October 15, 2025
This is a tough book which deals with the sensitive issue of Israel's actions in Gaza since 7 October 2023. I was curious to read an academic perspective as I often find myself unsure and confused by the information relayed by the media and by the actions of other governments who clearly have political allegiances.
This book explored current day and developed my understanding of the history of Israel as a nation. It explores the impact of the Holocaust on the actions and thoughts of multiple parties. It also calls out the importance of international law in holding individual, governments and nations to account. In this case in relation to the genocide in Gaza. It also explores the history of Israel, Zionism, the judiciary and the lack of a constitution.
I did find this a troubling read and it's not an easy read because of the topic. However it made me have a greater understanding of the situation and to reflect on what I could do differently in the event that this happens again. If you are at all curious about the current state of Israel, it's history and context then I would absolutely suggest this book.
I was given a complimentary copy of this book in return for an objective review.
This book explored current day and developed my understanding of the history of Israel as a nation. It explores the impact of the Holocaust on the actions and thoughts of multiple parties. It also calls out the importance of international law in holding individual, governments and nations to account. In this case in relation to the genocide in Gaza. It also explores the history of Israel, Zionism, the judiciary and the lack of a constitution.
I did find this a troubling read and it's not an easy read because of the topic. However it made me have a greater understanding of the situation and to reflect on what I could do differently in the event that this happens again. If you are at all curious about the current state of Israel, it's history and context then I would absolutely suggest this book.
I was given a complimentary copy of this book in return for an objective review.
April 26, 2026
"Originally, Zionism was a Jewish rebellion against fate and oppression, religious resignation and prejudice, ignorance and poverty and sickness. It broke away from the constraints of traditional society and left God far behind. Now, in an ironic reversal, the God of the Zealots is having the last word, as He did at Masada. As Israel is led singing and praying and dancing into the abyss, it is finally shaking itself free of Zionism and heading down the path of theocracy and apocalypse following a pillar of fire and smoke." (pg. 183)
"As long as seven million Jews rule over seven million Palestinians without any prospect of equality, peace will not come." (pg. 220)
"As long as seven million Jews rule over seven million Palestinians without any prospect of equality, peace will not come." (pg. 220)
May 17, 2026
Zacznę od mankamentów. W rozdziale o konstytucji cytowana jest głównie jedna osoba i zawarto zbyt dużo powtórzeń. Ogólnie brakuje też przedstawienia perspektywy polityków palestyńskich i ich opinii na temat rozwiązań konfliktu proponowanych przez autora i cytowanych innych osób.
Daję mimo to ocenę 5/5, ponieważ jest ciekawym przedstawieniem punktu widzenia Izraelczyka, który jest bardzo krytycznie nastawiony do polityki kraju pochodzenia i wykorzystywania Holokaustu w izraelskiej propagandzie wewnętrznej i zewnętrznej. Działania Izraela w Strefie Gazy nazywa ludobójstwem, a przesiedlenia czystką etniczną i zbrodnią wojenną, choć jak sam pisze, w 2023 nie używał jeszcze tych określeń.
Książka podzielona jest na tematyczne rozdziały. We wstępie i pierwszym rozdziale autor pisze o swoich relacjach z Izraelem, wspomina m. in. o protestach studentów, kiedy brał udział w jednej z tamtejszych konferencji. Rozmowy ze studentami są pretekstem do pokazania narracji dominującej w Izraelu. Z ich strony jak mantra padają frazesy o "najbardziej moralnej armii świata" i "prawie do obrony kraju za wszelką cenę", przy czym, jak zauważa autor, ludzie zwykle wypowiadają oba te zdania nie widząc sprzeczności, bo niby jak najbardziej moralna armia świata ma bronić kraju za wszelką cenę, doprowadzając do eksterminacji, głodowej śmierci i zniszczenia miast? Bartov zaznacza, że w tym przypadku określenie "prawa do obrony" to tak naprawdę zawoalowane "prawo do ataku".
Rozdział drugi to rozważania na temat relacji antysyjonizmu i antysemityzmu. Dla Bartova te dwa pojęcia to dwie różne sprawy. Zauważa, że jeszcze przed 7 października 2023 powstały nowe definicje antysemityzmu (np. JDA, IHRA, Nexus Project), z czego jedna została przyjęta przez administrację Trumpa jako podstawa do ingerencji na kampusach uniwersyteckich i ograniczania wolności demonstracji. Wszystko dlatego, że oficjalnie zaczęto utożsamiać antysyjonizm i krytykę Izraela z antysemityzmem, choć nieoficjalnie robiono to już wcześniej. Takie utożsamienie jest Netanyahu bardzo na rękę, ponieważ może utrzymywać poczucie ciągłego zagrożenia i mit oblężonej twierdzy. Według statystyk wzrosła liczba incydentów antysemickich, ale należy pamiętać, że na kwalifikowanie zdarzenia jako antysemickiego wpływ ma to, której definicji użyto. Nie oznacza to, że antysemityzm należy bagatelizować, ale uczciwie sprawdzić, czy za antysemityzm nie wzięto zwykłej krytyki rządu Izraela. Według autora, zjawiska antysemityzmu nie można też zrzucić na muzułmańskich imigrantów, gdy w samych Niemczech jest publicznie głoszony przez AfD. Na jednym z wieców tej partii Elon Musk wzywał do skończenia z kultem winy (w domyśle - wobec Holokaustu) i ubolewał nad utratą tożsamości przez Niemców z powodu różnorodności kulturowej.
W rozdziale trzecim czytamy przemyślenia o Holokauście, o różnych spojrzeniach na Holokaust w świecie naukowym - partykularystycznym i uniwersalistycznym, w końcu o tym, jak nieuczciwie i cynicznie tragedia milionów ludzi jest wykorzystywana przez polityków. Coś, co na początku było ostrzeżeniem i przestrogą dla całej ludzkości, stało się sprywatyzowanym narzędziem politycznym. Autor porównuje Holokaust do innych ludobójstw, w tym dokonanym na Hererach w Namibii. Bardzo ciekawa jest część o źródłach bezwzględnego poparcia Niemiec dla rządu Netanyahu. Mocne są fragmenty listów z frontu pisanych przez nazistowskich żołnierzy niemieckich i porównanie ich do dehumanizującej narracji wobec Palestyńczyków. Bartov pisze, że dla badań nad ludobójstwami kluczowe jest dzisiaj oddzielenie tej dyscypliny od polityki państwa Izrael.
Rozdział czwarty to temat ofiar dziecięcych. I tu znajdziemy cytaty z mediów izraelskich, sprawę wykorzystywania zdjęć ciał ofiar przez Netanyahu mimo sprzeciwu ich rodziny, ale też pokazanie nierówności Izraelczyków i Palestyńczyków wobec prawa.
Przedłużanie konfliktu i podtrzymywanie istnienia Hamasu jest Netanyahu na rękę. Według Bartova, premier Izraela pozwalał na przekazywanie milionów dolarów z Kataru do Hamasu, co miało pozwolić tej organizacji na rozbudowę tuneli i zbrojenia się. W 2015 roku sam Becalel Smotricz ogłosił, że "Hamas jest dla Izraela atutem" w walce o delegitymizację palestyńskich aspiracji politycznych. A więc - nie pozwolimy istnieć Palestynie jako państwo, "bo Hamas".
Ostatni rozdział to propozycje rozwiązań sytuacji.
Książka nie koncentruje się na politykach, przytacza wypowiedzi dziennikarzy, przedstawicieli prawicy i lewicy, która w sprawie Gazy coraz bardziej przesuwa się na prawo. Przeczytamy tu też o nastawieniu społeczeństwa Izraela do działań w Gazie i przeciwko czemu Izraelczycy protestowali na ulicach.
W książce oprócz osobistych doświadczeń autora nie brakuje tła historycznego. Jest to w zasadzie rozbudowany esej, który można by podzielić i rozwinąć w kilku osobnych książkach, bo niektóre sprawy są jedynie napoknięte. Warto włączyć go do debaty na temat Izraela i Palestyny.
Daję mimo to ocenę 5/5, ponieważ jest ciekawym przedstawieniem punktu widzenia Izraelczyka, który jest bardzo krytycznie nastawiony do polityki kraju pochodzenia i wykorzystywania Holokaustu w izraelskiej propagandzie wewnętrznej i zewnętrznej. Działania Izraela w Strefie Gazy nazywa ludobójstwem, a przesiedlenia czystką etniczną i zbrodnią wojenną, choć jak sam pisze, w 2023 nie używał jeszcze tych określeń.
Książka podzielona jest na tematyczne rozdziały. We wstępie i pierwszym rozdziale autor pisze o swoich relacjach z Izraelem, wspomina m. in. o protestach studentów, kiedy brał udział w jednej z tamtejszych konferencji. Rozmowy ze studentami są pretekstem do pokazania narracji dominującej w Izraelu. Z ich strony jak mantra padają frazesy o "najbardziej moralnej armii świata" i "prawie do obrony kraju za wszelką cenę", przy czym, jak zauważa autor, ludzie zwykle wypowiadają oba te zdania nie widząc sprzeczności, bo niby jak najbardziej moralna armia świata ma bronić kraju za wszelką cenę, doprowadzając do eksterminacji, głodowej śmierci i zniszczenia miast? Bartov zaznacza, że w tym przypadku określenie "prawa do obrony" to tak naprawdę zawoalowane "prawo do ataku".
Rozdział drugi to rozważania na temat relacji antysyjonizmu i antysemityzmu. Dla Bartova te dwa pojęcia to dwie różne sprawy. Zauważa, że jeszcze przed 7 października 2023 powstały nowe definicje antysemityzmu (np. JDA, IHRA, Nexus Project), z czego jedna została przyjęta przez administrację Trumpa jako podstawa do ingerencji na kampusach uniwersyteckich i ograniczania wolności demonstracji. Wszystko dlatego, że oficjalnie zaczęto utożsamiać antysyjonizm i krytykę Izraela z antysemityzmem, choć nieoficjalnie robiono to już wcześniej. Takie utożsamienie jest Netanyahu bardzo na rękę, ponieważ może utrzymywać poczucie ciągłego zagrożenia i mit oblężonej twierdzy. Według statystyk wzrosła liczba incydentów antysemickich, ale należy pamiętać, że na kwalifikowanie zdarzenia jako antysemickiego wpływ ma to, której definicji użyto. Nie oznacza to, że antysemityzm należy bagatelizować, ale uczciwie sprawdzić, czy za antysemityzm nie wzięto zwykłej krytyki rządu Izraela. Według autora, zjawiska antysemityzmu nie można też zrzucić na muzułmańskich imigrantów, gdy w samych Niemczech jest publicznie głoszony przez AfD. Na jednym z wieców tej partii Elon Musk wzywał do skończenia z kultem winy (w domyśle - wobec Holokaustu) i ubolewał nad utratą tożsamości przez Niemców z powodu różnorodności kulturowej.
W rozdziale trzecim czytamy przemyślenia o Holokauście, o różnych spojrzeniach na Holokaust w świecie naukowym - partykularystycznym i uniwersalistycznym, w końcu o tym, jak nieuczciwie i cynicznie tragedia milionów ludzi jest wykorzystywana przez polityków. Coś, co na początku było ostrzeżeniem i przestrogą dla całej ludzkości, stało się sprywatyzowanym narzędziem politycznym. Autor porównuje Holokaust do innych ludobójstw, w tym dokonanym na Hererach w Namibii. Bardzo ciekawa jest część o źródłach bezwzględnego poparcia Niemiec dla rządu Netanyahu. Mocne są fragmenty listów z frontu pisanych przez nazistowskich żołnierzy niemieckich i porównanie ich do dehumanizującej narracji wobec Palestyńczyków. Bartov pisze, że dla badań nad ludobójstwami kluczowe jest dzisiaj oddzielenie tej dyscypliny od polityki państwa Izrael.
Rozdział czwarty to temat ofiar dziecięcych. I tu znajdziemy cytaty z mediów izraelskich, sprawę wykorzystywania zdjęć ciał ofiar przez Netanyahu mimo sprzeciwu ich rodziny, ale też pokazanie nierówności Izraelczyków i Palestyńczyków wobec prawa.
Przedłużanie konfliktu i podtrzymywanie istnienia Hamasu jest Netanyahu na rękę. Według Bartova, premier Izraela pozwalał na przekazywanie milionów dolarów z Kataru do Hamasu, co miało pozwolić tej organizacji na rozbudowę tuneli i zbrojenia się. W 2015 roku sam Becalel Smotricz ogłosił, że "Hamas jest dla Izraela atutem" w walce o delegitymizację palestyńskich aspiracji politycznych. A więc - nie pozwolimy istnieć Palestynie jako państwo, "bo Hamas".
Ostatni rozdział to propozycje rozwiązań sytuacji.
Książka nie koncentruje się na politykach, przytacza wypowiedzi dziennikarzy, przedstawicieli prawicy i lewicy, która w sprawie Gazy coraz bardziej przesuwa się na prawo. Przeczytamy tu też o nastawieniu społeczeństwa Izraela do działań w Gazie i przeciwko czemu Izraelczycy protestowali na ulicach.
W książce oprócz osobistych doświadczeń autora nie brakuje tła historycznego. Jest to w zasadzie rozbudowany esej, który można by podzielić i rozwinąć w kilku osobnych książkach, bo niektóre sprawy są jedynie napoknięte. Warto włączyć go do debaty na temat Izraela i Palestyny.
Read
May 6, 2026Interesting. I read it because I heard him on a couple of podcasts and was curious about his take on Gaza, etc. I agree with much that he says but I don't have the expertise to evaluate his arguments. This being the case I'm not going to assign a star value.
May 31, 2026
This is an important and brave book by Omer Bartov. Words such as war-crimes and genocide exist as blurs: the media refers to them but never actually pins down what they mean in legal terms. They are not simple terms.
In Israel: What Went Wrong, Bartov wrestles with Zionism and exposes how this has evolved into a political ideology. Bartov dares to say what too many writers evade. Israel has deliberately politicised the Holocaust as a defensive strategy. Controversially, he argues that the histories of Israel and Palestine cannot be separated and interpreted in isolation. The Nabka and the Holocaust are fused.
Bartov's writing is incisive, aware of ironies, and equivocations. He writes from a Humanist viewpoint which sees the wrongs pursued by Israel and Palestine. He argues convincingly that by seeking safety the Israeli government has created danger: Israel has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for Jewish people to live.
In Israel: What Went Wrong, Bartov wrestles with Zionism and exposes how this has evolved into a political ideology. Bartov dares to say what too many writers evade. Israel has deliberately politicised the Holocaust as a defensive strategy. Controversially, he argues that the histories of Israel and Palestine cannot be separated and interpreted in isolation. The Nabka and the Holocaust are fused.
Bartov's writing is incisive, aware of ironies, and equivocations. He writes from a Humanist viewpoint which sees the wrongs pursued by Israel and Palestine. He argues convincingly that by seeking safety the Israeli government has created danger: Israel has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for Jewish people to live.
October 1, 2025
Israeli-born American Holocaust and genocide scholar Omer Bartov has reluctantly and methodically come to the conclusion that the Israeli war on Gaza is a genocide. This book is about the journey to his conclusion - which in many ways reminds me of the more conservative climate scientists who saw the signs, but waited before stating that the evidence of CO2-caused climate change was incontrovertible. His arguments deserve to be read by everyone with an interest in the issue, even those who vehemently disagree. I, personally, found his arguments utterly convincing. Bartov is no apologist for the nature of Hamas or for the heinous crimes of October 7, but the topic of this concise book is Israel and the actions that they have controlled or can control in the future.
Along the way we get: the history and legacy of the Nakba - the forcible displacement of numerous Palestinians in 1948 from what would become Israel; the uses and the abuses of the memory of the Holocaust; the failure of Israel to live up to the ideal of equality for its citizens (tied to the lack of a constitution); Israeli settlers committing anti-Arab pogroms in the West Bank with no accountability; and the recent redefining of anti-semitism to include anti-Zionism.
Regarding the use of the Holocaust, I was particularly touched by Bartov's discussion of the phrase "Never Again". As a secular Jew and the son of holocaust survivors I had always interpreted this as a universalist message imparting a special obligation to Jews to make sure that this never happened again to anyone including Jews. Instead the "Never Again" mantra is now often interpreted as meaning Never Again to the Jews and by any means necessary including acts of immense cruelty.
I read this on an egalley immediately after reading Peter Beinart's book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, which in less depth covers much of the same ground. Neither book brought up Hamas's culpability in the destruction of Gaza due to Israel's reaction to October 7 being so utterly predictable. If I could predict Israel's reaction, Hamas must have been able to as well. So the question is: Is Israel falling into Hamas's trap? They certainly are losing their stature in the world and considerable support amongst their best friends including US Jewry. And if this was indeed a trap, Hamas's willingness to sacrifice its populace and infrastructure in exchange for some twisted long game certainly needs to be examined.
All books like this must end with possible solutions to the current dilemma. Like many, Bartov believes the best solution would be two confederated states with Jewish and Palestinian identities. It sounds like a good idea, but if the author was trying to end on an optimistic note it certainly didn't work for me.
Thanks to FSG and netgalley for providing me a copy for early review, in this case nearly 7 months in advance. And since this is an unusually long goodreads and netgalley review for me, thanks to anyone who read to the end.
Along the way we get: the history and legacy of the Nakba - the forcible displacement of numerous Palestinians in 1948 from what would become Israel; the uses and the abuses of the memory of the Holocaust; the failure of Israel to live up to the ideal of equality for its citizens (tied to the lack of a constitution); Israeli settlers committing anti-Arab pogroms in the West Bank with no accountability; and the recent redefining of anti-semitism to include anti-Zionism.
Regarding the use of the Holocaust, I was particularly touched by Bartov's discussion of the phrase "Never Again". As a secular Jew and the son of holocaust survivors I had always interpreted this as a universalist message imparting a special obligation to Jews to make sure that this never happened again to anyone including Jews. Instead the "Never Again" mantra is now often interpreted as meaning Never Again to the Jews and by any means necessary including acts of immense cruelty.
I read this on an egalley immediately after reading Peter Beinart's book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, which in less depth covers much of the same ground. Neither book brought up Hamas's culpability in the destruction of Gaza due to Israel's reaction to October 7 being so utterly predictable. If I could predict Israel's reaction, Hamas must have been able to as well. So the question is: Is Israel falling into Hamas's trap? They certainly are losing their stature in the world and considerable support amongst their best friends including US Jewry. And if this was indeed a trap, Hamas's willingness to sacrifice its populace and infrastructure in exchange for some twisted long game certainly needs to be examined.
All books like this must end with possible solutions to the current dilemma. Like many, Bartov believes the best solution would be two confederated states with Jewish and Palestinian identities. It sounds like a good idea, but if the author was trying to end on an optimistic note it certainly didn't work for me.
Thanks to FSG and netgalley for providing me a copy for early review, in this case nearly 7 months in advance. And since this is an unusually long goodreads and netgalley review for me, thanks to anyone who read to the end.
May 11, 2026
This explains some of the history and events that range from the creation of Israel up to mid 2025. This is basically the only positives I can attribute to this book unfortunately.
To think that the conflict and genocide can cease with pressure from outside forces and afterwards everyone will just hold hands and sing koombiya is delusional. It felt like the horrors of the Nakba (as well as the continuous destruction) were glossed over while being extremely outraged by October 7th. October 7th was presented as an attack out of the blue and not as a culmination of events that lead up to it. There will not be a resolution for peace without accountability. To think otherwise is extremely naive.
To think that the conflict and genocide can cease with pressure from outside forces and afterwards everyone will just hold hands and sing koombiya is delusional. It felt like the horrors of the Nakba (as well as the continuous destruction) were glossed over while being extremely outraged by October 7th. October 7th was presented as an attack out of the blue and not as a culmination of events that lead up to it. There will not be a resolution for peace without accountability. To think otherwise is extremely naive.
July 2, 2026
Not exactly a groundbreaking analysis but still a very good and – mostly – quite concise summary of the genocidal mess that Israel finds itself in, and a partial history of how it got there.
I knew the history, but what made this book arresting for me was Bartov’s observations at a personal level: he was born and raised in Israel, and as a historian of war genocide and the Holocaust, questioning some of the Israeli myths about itself; later he continued his academic career in the US. The book was written following two trips back to Israel after the October 7 massacre and as a result of conversations with his friends and the local population.
Bartov begins with a chapter where he concludes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, though he did not think so in the first months after the massacre. This is hardly a radical position now and he does labour the arguments a bit, as if he were making a presentation at the International Criminal Court. But still welcome.
He then takes up the question of Antisemitism and Zionism, arguing that including criticism of Zionism, the government of Israel and its actions in the definition of antisemitism, is actually providing fuel to real antisemites, particularly on the Right. Again, something that’s been pointed out many times before, though not often by Jewish scholars. Bartov says he receives considerable criticism over his position.
But the thing that I did not really appreciate was the extent to which the Israelis have been manipulated by the Netanyahu regime and the Israeli Defence Force into a state of trauma and denial where they cannot see and do not care that what the IDF is doing in Gaza is far beyond any reasonable defensive response.
In the chapter the Slaughter of Children, Bartov notes that in calling the massacre a Pogrom - bringing up the spectre of the Holocaust and a population defenceless against the mob – the government has effectively inverted which group is currently under attack. Pogroms are, in fact, being carried out - but by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, he points out.
As to the title What Went Wrong, this is actually the least interesting part of the book. In an over-long chapter The Missing Constitution Bartov argues that it was Israel’s failure to write a constitution after 1948 that likely led to the later oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. He thinks the illegal occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza might not have happened had one existed.
(Well maybe. But you could equally well argue that “what went wrong” occurred at almost every stage between the first years of Zionist immigration, through the Nakba, the illegal occupation after 1967, the abortive peace processes, to Netanyahu’s cynical support of Hamas; and at any point, any other path except the one taken would probably have been better.
And there are certainly countries without written constitutions - Canada and NZ for starters – that aren’t noted for oppressing their indigenous populations.)
At the end, in his Coda chapter, Bartov wonders how long Israel can exist as the authoritarian apartheid state it has become. He thinks perhaps 20 or 30 years before it implodes the way South Africa did.
But beyond that, he does sketch some interesting and hopeful ideas about how 7 million Jews and 7 million Arabs could potentially coexist in varying degrees of confederation.
With sufficient outside pressure though, he believes a calamity (worse even than already exists) might be avoided, and he even mentions Trump’s interventions several times.
All I can say is, he is putting an awful lot of faith in Netanyahu’s best buddy’s “peace” plans. I should drop a star for that.
I knew the history, but what made this book arresting for me was Bartov’s observations at a personal level: he was born and raised in Israel, and as a historian of war genocide and the Holocaust, questioning some of the Israeli myths about itself; later he continued his academic career in the US. The book was written following two trips back to Israel after the October 7 massacre and as a result of conversations with his friends and the local population.
Bartov begins with a chapter where he concludes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, though he did not think so in the first months after the massacre. This is hardly a radical position now and he does labour the arguments a bit, as if he were making a presentation at the International Criminal Court. But still welcome.
He then takes up the question of Antisemitism and Zionism, arguing that including criticism of Zionism, the government of Israel and its actions in the definition of antisemitism, is actually providing fuel to real antisemites, particularly on the Right. Again, something that’s been pointed out many times before, though not often by Jewish scholars. Bartov says he receives considerable criticism over his position.
But the thing that I did not really appreciate was the extent to which the Israelis have been manipulated by the Netanyahu regime and the Israeli Defence Force into a state of trauma and denial where they cannot see and do not care that what the IDF is doing in Gaza is far beyond any reasonable defensive response.
In the chapter the Slaughter of Children, Bartov notes that in calling the massacre a Pogrom - bringing up the spectre of the Holocaust and a population defenceless against the mob – the government has effectively inverted which group is currently under attack. Pogroms are, in fact, being carried out - but by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, he points out.
As to the title What Went Wrong, this is actually the least interesting part of the book. In an over-long chapter The Missing Constitution Bartov argues that it was Israel’s failure to write a constitution after 1948 that likely led to the later oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. He thinks the illegal occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza might not have happened had one existed.
(Well maybe. But you could equally well argue that “what went wrong” occurred at almost every stage between the first years of Zionist immigration, through the Nakba, the illegal occupation after 1967, the abortive peace processes, to Netanyahu’s cynical support of Hamas; and at any point, any other path except the one taken would probably have been better.
And there are certainly countries without written constitutions - Canada and NZ for starters – that aren’t noted for oppressing their indigenous populations.)
At the end, in his Coda chapter, Bartov wonders how long Israel can exist as the authoritarian apartheid state it has become. He thinks perhaps 20 or 30 years before it implodes the way South Africa did.
But beyond that, he does sketch some interesting and hopeful ideas about how 7 million Jews and 7 million Arabs could potentially coexist in varying degrees of confederation.
With sufficient outside pressure though, he believes a calamity (worse even than already exists) might be avoided, and he even mentions Trump’s interventions several times.
All I can say is, he is putting an awful lot of faith in Netanyahu’s best buddy’s “peace” plans. I should drop a star for that.
June 1, 2026
Przebudzenie rzadko dokonuje się nagle, w mgnieniu oka, przez wgląd totalnie przeciwstawne temu, w czym się było wychowywaną albo co się uznawał latami za słuszne. Są etapy. W moim odczuciu książka Omera Bartova "Izrael. Co poszło nie tak?" jest bardzo dobrą lekturą dla osób, które już rozumieją, że z Izraelem coś jest nie tak. I warto ją czytać.
Dla osób, które już od jakiegoś czasu wiedzą, że syjonizm nie rokuje lepiej, może być zbyt zachowawcza, ale warto się przyjrzeć tej ścieżce myślowej osoby, która w syjonizmie się wychowała i trochę jeszcze nadal wierzy, że dałoby się nadać mu ludzką twarz. Nie wszystko się Wam spodoba, ale moim zdaniem daje dobry wgląd i możliwość dialogu z osobami, które próbują na nowo sobie ułożyć światopogląd
Dla osób, które już od jakiegoś czasu wiedzą, że syjonizm nie rokuje lepiej, może być zbyt zachowawcza, ale warto się przyjrzeć tej ścieżce myślowej osoby, która w syjonizmie się wychowała i trochę jeszcze nadal wierzy, że dałoby się nadać mu ludzką twarz. Nie wszystko się Wam spodoba, ale moim zdaniem daje dobry wgląd i możliwość dialogu z osobami, które próbują na nowo sobie ułożyć światopogląd
May 25, 2026
„Izrael. Co poszło nie tak?” Omera Bartova to książka, po której trudno było mi wrócić do rzeczywistości. To nie jest zwykły reportaż polityczny ani chłodna analiza konfliktu izraelsko-palestyńskiego. To osobiste, bolesne rozliczenie izraelskiego historyka z własnym państwem, własną tożsamością i ideologią, w której został wychowany. Bartov to Izraelczyk, były żołnierz wojny Jom Kippur i badacz ludobójstw. W swoim reportażu podejmuje próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie, które wybrzmiewa nad całą książką. Jak państwo powstałe po Holokauście mogło samo zostać oskarżone o zbrodnie wojenne, czystki etniczne i brutalną przemoc wobec Palestyńczyków?
Już we wstępie autor pisze o „tragicznej przemianie syjonizmu z ruchu wyzwolenia w ideologię etnonacjonalizmu”, a z każdą kolejną stroną czytelnik ma wrażenie, że obserwuje powolny rozpad moralnych fundamentów państwa Izrael. Bartov nie ucieka od mocnych tez i niewygodnych pytań. Zastanawia się, dlaczego izraelskie społeczeństwo z tak dużą łatwością akceptuje przemoc wobec Palestyńczyków, dlaczego odczłowieczanie drugiego narodu stało się częścią języka polityki i codzienności oraz jak Holokaust został wpisany w izraelską narrację narodową jako narzędzie budowania strachu, oblężonej twierdzy i permanentnego poczucia zagrożenia.
Ta książka momentami budziła we mnie autentyczną frustrację i gniew. Były chwile, gdy trudno było mi zaakceptować język autora. Szczególnie wtedy, gdy atak Hamasu określał mianem „rzezi” czy „brutalnego ataku”, podczas gdy działania Izraela długo nazywał bardziej zachowawczo „operacją wojskową”. Widać jednak, że Bartov sam przechodzi wewnętrzną przemianę i konfrontuje się z własnymi ograniczeniami oraz wychowaniem. Ta książka mnie poruszyła, bo nie pisze jej ktoś z zewnątrz, ale człowiek, który przez lata był częścią tego systemu i dziś z przerażeniem obserwuje, jak bardzo nie poznaje własnego społeczeństwa, a nawet przyjaciół.
Bartov stawia też pytania o to czy Holokaust miał być uniwersalną przestrogą dla całej ludzkości, czy stał się narzędziem budowania narodowej wyjątkowości? Czy obietnica „nigdy więcej” naprawdę obejmuje wszystkich, czy tylko wybranych? Autor pokazuje, jak centralne miejsce Zagłady w izraelskiej edukacji i polityce buduje wspólnotę opartą bardziej na strachu i poczuciu oblężenia niż na empatii i odpowiedzialności. Rozbił mnie na kawałki fragment, w którym zestawia pamięć o Holokauście z cierpieniem Palestyńczyków i pisze o „dwóch Holokaustach patrzących sobie prosto w oczy”.
Ogromnym atutem reportażu jest również to, że Bartov nie ogranicza się wyłącznie do opisu ludobójstw@ w Gazie. Pisze o kryzysie izraelskiej demokracji, o utożsamianiu antysyjonizmu z antysemityzmem, o instrumentalizacji oskarżeń o antysemityzm wobec krytyków Izraela oraz o niebezpieczeństwie marginalizacji badań nad ludobójstwem. Szczególnie niepokojące są jego refleksje dotyczące przyszłości, bo to wizja Izraela zmierzającego w stronę teokracji, nacjonalizmu i moralnej przepaści brzmi momentami niemal apokaliptycznie.
„Izrael. Co poszło nie tak?” zmusza za to do zadawania pytań o granice człowieczeństwa, o pamięć historyczną i o to, jak łatwo ofiara może stać się sprawcą przemocy. I przypomina, że historia niczego nas nie nauczyła…
Już we wstępie autor pisze o „tragicznej przemianie syjonizmu z ruchu wyzwolenia w ideologię etnonacjonalizmu”, a z każdą kolejną stroną czytelnik ma wrażenie, że obserwuje powolny rozpad moralnych fundamentów państwa Izrael. Bartov nie ucieka od mocnych tez i niewygodnych pytań. Zastanawia się, dlaczego izraelskie społeczeństwo z tak dużą łatwością akceptuje przemoc wobec Palestyńczyków, dlaczego odczłowieczanie drugiego narodu stało się częścią języka polityki i codzienności oraz jak Holokaust został wpisany w izraelską narrację narodową jako narzędzie budowania strachu, oblężonej twierdzy i permanentnego poczucia zagrożenia.
Ta książka momentami budziła we mnie autentyczną frustrację i gniew. Były chwile, gdy trudno było mi zaakceptować język autora. Szczególnie wtedy, gdy atak Hamasu określał mianem „rzezi” czy „brutalnego ataku”, podczas gdy działania Izraela długo nazywał bardziej zachowawczo „operacją wojskową”. Widać jednak, że Bartov sam przechodzi wewnętrzną przemianę i konfrontuje się z własnymi ograniczeniami oraz wychowaniem. Ta książka mnie poruszyła, bo nie pisze jej ktoś z zewnątrz, ale człowiek, który przez lata był częścią tego systemu i dziś z przerażeniem obserwuje, jak bardzo nie poznaje własnego społeczeństwa, a nawet przyjaciół.
Bartov stawia też pytania o to czy Holokaust miał być uniwersalną przestrogą dla całej ludzkości, czy stał się narzędziem budowania narodowej wyjątkowości? Czy obietnica „nigdy więcej” naprawdę obejmuje wszystkich, czy tylko wybranych? Autor pokazuje, jak centralne miejsce Zagłady w izraelskiej edukacji i polityce buduje wspólnotę opartą bardziej na strachu i poczuciu oblężenia niż na empatii i odpowiedzialności. Rozbił mnie na kawałki fragment, w którym zestawia pamięć o Holokauście z cierpieniem Palestyńczyków i pisze o „dwóch Holokaustach patrzących sobie prosto w oczy”.
Ogromnym atutem reportażu jest również to, że Bartov nie ogranicza się wyłącznie do opisu ludobójstw@ w Gazie. Pisze o kryzysie izraelskiej demokracji, o utożsamianiu antysyjonizmu z antysemityzmem, o instrumentalizacji oskarżeń o antysemityzm wobec krytyków Izraela oraz o niebezpieczeństwie marginalizacji badań nad ludobójstwem. Szczególnie niepokojące są jego refleksje dotyczące przyszłości, bo to wizja Izraela zmierzającego w stronę teokracji, nacjonalizmu i moralnej przepaści brzmi momentami niemal apokaliptycznie.
„Izrael. Co poszło nie tak?” zmusza za to do zadawania pytań o granice człowieczeństwa, o pamięć historyczną i o to, jak łatwo ofiara może stać się sprawcą przemocy. I przypomina, że historia niczego nas nie nauczyła…
April 26, 2026
I found this enlightening but so, so grim - Bartov paints Israel as a failed-state-in-waiting that, despite the conflicting impulses (both noble and tyrannical) that led to its creation, has been basically doomed all along. Some of the history was new to me, other details were simply painted in a new light, but what I appreciated most was Bartov’s analysis of the critical mistakes that created the contradictory apartheid state as it currently exists. I wasn’t aware of just how many junctures there were where Israel could have gone down a different path - alas. There also aren’t solutions here (not that I expected there to be) and I find myself at a loss for how to handle the fundamental horrors in the nation’s heart… how do you convince brainwashed populace, hopped up on generations of us-vs-them hatemongering, that their neighbors are human? How do you stop a theocracy masquerading as democracy from sliding further into decline as its youngest, best, and brightest denounce it and flee? This book so, so effectively recasts “never again” as a ghoulish rallying cry for a bloodthirsty people so traumatized by their recent history that they’re willing to destroy the entire world to protect themselves, if need be. It’s horrifying and enlightening.
That being said, I think that, for my tastes, Bartov spends a little too long mired in definitional clarification. His argument(s) that terms like “genocide” and “apartheid” have strict international legal definitions that are indisputably being fulfilled are a bit belabored… wouldn’t you pick up this book already accepting that premise? My impression is that anyone willing and ready to accept Israel’s culpability in war crimes doesn’t need convincing at this point. That being said, he’s clearly used to crafting his arguments in a particular way (in a classroom, or the pages of the New York Times) so I can hardly begrudge him his rhetorical style.
And hey, if it helps a skeptic come to the conclusion that the atrocities the Netanyahu government is engaging in (at this very moment!!!) are unjustifiable and merit international intervention, then this book is worth it. I wanted to talk about it with everyone around me as I was reading it, and the context it’s given me has been invaluable, given that the great tragedy of Israel’s tyranny is unlikely to be halted anytime soon.
My thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the audio-ARC; James McNaughton does a great job with this.
That being said, I think that, for my tastes, Bartov spends a little too long mired in definitional clarification. His argument(s) that terms like “genocide” and “apartheid” have strict international legal definitions that are indisputably being fulfilled are a bit belabored… wouldn’t you pick up this book already accepting that premise? My impression is that anyone willing and ready to accept Israel’s culpability in war crimes doesn’t need convincing at this point. That being said, he’s clearly used to crafting his arguments in a particular way (in a classroom, or the pages of the New York Times) so I can hardly begrudge him his rhetorical style.
And hey, if it helps a skeptic come to the conclusion that the atrocities the Netanyahu government is engaging in (at this very moment!!!) are unjustifiable and merit international intervention, then this book is worth it. I wanted to talk about it with everyone around me as I was reading it, and the context it’s given me has been invaluable, given that the great tragedy of Israel’s tyranny is unlikely to be halted anytime soon.
My thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the audio-ARC; James McNaughton does a great job with this.
May 9, 2026
I remember thinking when I was in my 20s that “the Palestine Israel impasse has been headline news almost every week of my entire life!” And “If only they could find peace, anything would be possible!”
I’m 65 now and nothing has changed.
Israel, What Went Wrong, helps explain why.
I’m 65 now and nothing has changed.
Israel, What Went Wrong, helps explain why.
May 24, 2026
I thought this is a really good book, able to present multiple perspectives on Zionism without minimizing Israel's history of violence.
It's also very engaging and well written.
But I think the title choice is poor, it signals something different from the author's arguments. From my reading, he doesn't frame Zionism as something that started well and then failed, but he recognizes different strains within it and its colonial settler aspect since Israel's inception.
It's also very engaging and well written.
But I think the title choice is poor, it signals something different from the author's arguments. From my reading, he doesn't frame Zionism as something that started well and then failed, but he recognizes different strains within it and its colonial settler aspect since Israel's inception.
June 2, 2026
A concise and harrowing summary
May 18, 2026
I can’t give more than 3 stars to any piece of propaganda in the first place, so 2 is not terrible. This is the better kind of propaganda insofar as it is at least anti-genocide, but the author’s blind commitment to states, constitutional frameworks, security apparatuses, etc, completely prevents him from thinking about the real core issues that have to do with social relations on the ground. We have a bloodthirsty society poisoned by decades of unchecked militarization and supremacist attitudes. These things can’t be changed by passing a bunch of laws (and the laws can’t be passed because of these things). But Bartov comes off as someone who started thinking about this only a year ago. His whole line of thinking is a dead end.
P.S. The author’s delusions about Trump and Germany (lol) potentially having positive influence on the outcome are just silly.
P.S. The author’s delusions about Trump and Germany (lol) potentially having positive influence on the outcome are just silly.
June 20, 2026
This book is not self-contained. I wish the author had spent more time in establishing how Hamas was formed, how Netanyahu came to power, and how we reached the current calamities. Instead there are only very sweeping touches on the background knowledge, and the author keeps repeating oneself on points that were already crystal clear from earlier chapters of the book. After reading this book I do have a better understanding of the current affair, but it reads more like a call to action for people who would resonate with the writing rather than comprehensive explanations for general readers.
October 20, 2025
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Israel: What Went Wrong explains Zionism and the history behind the state of Israel. Bartov discusses the historical impact of the Holocaust on Israel and European Jewry in particular. The main question throughout this book is how can Israel legitimise the conflict with Palestine after the Holocaust and genocide of the Jews. Furthermore how can some Israeli civilians and supporters of Israel justify alleged war crimes against the Palestinian people. Bartov himself served in the IDF during the Yom Kippur War, grew up in Tel Aviv and is a scholar of the Holocaust so his perspective is incredibly nuanced and important.
I really appreciate this book and respect what Bartov has done in this book. This book explains Zionism and the formation of Israel in a way that’s easy to understand. I found this book to be compulsively readable and I think people could pick this up without knowing anything about Israel/Palestine. I found this to be a very enjoyable read simply because it is interesting and the writing isn’t dry like some non-fiction books can be. I also found this to be an important book because of the author’s own experience serving in the IDF. I will be recommending this and I think this is a necessary read to understand what’s going on in Israel/Palestine.
Israel: What Went Wrong explains Zionism and the history behind the state of Israel. Bartov discusses the historical impact of the Holocaust on Israel and European Jewry in particular. The main question throughout this book is how can Israel legitimise the conflict with Palestine after the Holocaust and genocide of the Jews. Furthermore how can some Israeli civilians and supporters of Israel justify alleged war crimes against the Palestinian people. Bartov himself served in the IDF during the Yom Kippur War, grew up in Tel Aviv and is a scholar of the Holocaust so his perspective is incredibly nuanced and important.
I really appreciate this book and respect what Bartov has done in this book. This book explains Zionism and the formation of Israel in a way that’s easy to understand. I found this book to be compulsively readable and I think people could pick this up without knowing anything about Israel/Palestine. I found this to be a very enjoyable read simply because it is interesting and the writing isn’t dry like some non-fiction books can be. I also found this to be an important book because of the author’s own experience serving in the IDF. I will be recommending this and I think this is a necessary read to understand what’s going on in Israel/Palestine.
June 14, 2026
I sought out Bartov’s work because I believe that anyone who is horrified by the current destruction of Gaza has a responsibility to learn deeply, interrogate the history, and grapple with the strongest arguments and evidence available. I was especially drawn to his reliance on primary sources, international law, and his refusal to flatten a conflict shaped by profound trauma, fear, and competing historical narratives.
What makes Bartov’s work so powerful is that he holds so many of the histories and contradictions at once. He is a Holocaust scholar, an Israeli Jew born into a family deeply shaped by antisemitism, and a former IDF soldier. He understands why Israel represented liberation and safety for Jews after centuries of persecution and the Holocaust. At the same time, he examines what he sees as the ways that this liberation movement has been transformed into occupation, apartheid, and genocide.
I walked away with so much empathy for Jewish people who have grown up with fear, trauma, and narratives that conflate rich, ancient Jewish identity with colonial Zionism and the actions of the extremist Israeli government. Bartov’s analysis is rooted in primary sources, historical evidence, and international law, and his moral clarity comes from his ability to hold the suffering of his own people while refusing to justify the suffering of others.
“Never again” cannot belong to one people alone. If the horrors of history have taught us anything, it is that our humanity requires us to recognize and resist dehumanization wherever we see it. Free Palestine ✊
What makes Bartov’s work so powerful is that he holds so many of the histories and contradictions at once. He is a Holocaust scholar, an Israeli Jew born into a family deeply shaped by antisemitism, and a former IDF soldier. He understands why Israel represented liberation and safety for Jews after centuries of persecution and the Holocaust. At the same time, he examines what he sees as the ways that this liberation movement has been transformed into occupation, apartheid, and genocide.
I walked away with so much empathy for Jewish people who have grown up with fear, trauma, and narratives that conflate rich, ancient Jewish identity with colonial Zionism and the actions of the extremist Israeli government. Bartov’s analysis is rooted in primary sources, historical evidence, and international law, and his moral clarity comes from his ability to hold the suffering of his own people while refusing to justify the suffering of others.
“Never again” cannot belong to one people alone. If the horrors of history have taught us anything, it is that our humanity requires us to recognize and resist dehumanization wherever we see it. Free Palestine ✊
June 23, 2026
Last week the Indian Express carried an appreciative review of Omer Bartov’s Israel: What Went Wrong (Fern Press, 2026) (“Moment of Reckoning”, 14 June 2026)
Among the English-language Indian newspapers, the left-leaning The Hindu has the best and the most elaborate book review section. Indian Express’ book review page, though not as comprehensive, carries its own weight in terms of depth and insight.
That’s why when the Express carries an admiring review of a book, I need to take a look.
So here I am.
Earlier this year I read Douglas Murray’s On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West in which Murray dealt with the brutalities of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 terror strike and how the Israelis were coping with the tragedy.
In one sense, Professor Bartov’s book provides a counterpoint.
The author firmly believes that what happened post-7 October was genocide and wonders “by what bitter cunning of history have we come to the point that not even eight decades after the Jewish state was established in 1948 … Israel engages for two years in a genocidal undertaking with almost total impunity…?” (p.3)
Bartov went over the broad arc of history to find the roots of anti-Semitism and the birth of Zionism, the Holocaust and the (re)birth of a nation. Horrific atrocities on the European Jewry led to the creation of Israel; but that was followed by another tragedy: “Nakba – the violent mass displacement of the Palestinians in 1948.” (p. 14)
And the two tragedies – the Holocaust and the Nakba – have brought the land between the Jordan River and the sea where it is today.
Prof Bartov minces no words in putting the blame on where he believes it belongs: “…the two-year campaign of ethnic cleansing and annihilation conducted with near-complete impunity by Israel in Gaza, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu portrayed in his July 2024 speech to a joint meeting of Congress as nothing less than a “clash between barbarism and civilization.”” (p. 187)
Strong words? Very strong. And coming from an Israeli – an American-Israeli – is sounds all the more devastating.
What’s the way out? May be – just may be – “a confederation of two sovereign nations living peacefully in partnership on the same land” (p. 210), as some commentators are advocating? But, for a historical legacy as complex as Arab – Israeli conflict, we cannot be sure.
One thing is clear, though. A solution must be found. And it will never be found in the bunker busters and drones and the Iron Dome and the David’s Sling. It cannot be found on a heap of 75,000 dead bodies. It can only be found in the hearts of people – both Arabs and Israelis. And all of us.
A people as intelligent, as enterprising, as cultured and innovative as the Israelis cannot allow themselves to fall in the eyes of humanity.
Omer Bartov’s book forces us to confront that moment of reckoning.
Forcefully, but with a great deal of compassion.
Among the English-language Indian newspapers, the left-leaning The Hindu has the best and the most elaborate book review section. Indian Express’ book review page, though not as comprehensive, carries its own weight in terms of depth and insight.
That’s why when the Express carries an admiring review of a book, I need to take a look.
So here I am.
Earlier this year I read Douglas Murray’s On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West in which Murray dealt with the brutalities of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 terror strike and how the Israelis were coping with the tragedy.
In one sense, Professor Bartov’s book provides a counterpoint.
The author firmly believes that what happened post-7 October was genocide and wonders “by what bitter cunning of history have we come to the point that not even eight decades after the Jewish state was established in 1948 … Israel engages for two years in a genocidal undertaking with almost total impunity…?” (p.3)
Bartov went over the broad arc of history to find the roots of anti-Semitism and the birth of Zionism, the Holocaust and the (re)birth of a nation. Horrific atrocities on the European Jewry led to the creation of Israel; but that was followed by another tragedy: “Nakba – the violent mass displacement of the Palestinians in 1948.” (p. 14)
And the two tragedies – the Holocaust and the Nakba – have brought the land between the Jordan River and the sea where it is today.
Prof Bartov minces no words in putting the blame on where he believes it belongs: “…the two-year campaign of ethnic cleansing and annihilation conducted with near-complete impunity by Israel in Gaza, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu portrayed in his July 2024 speech to a joint meeting of Congress as nothing less than a “clash between barbarism and civilization.”” (p. 187)
Strong words? Very strong. And coming from an Israeli – an American-Israeli – is sounds all the more devastating.
What’s the way out? May be – just may be – “a confederation of two sovereign nations living peacefully in partnership on the same land” (p. 210), as some commentators are advocating? But, for a historical legacy as complex as Arab – Israeli conflict, we cannot be sure.
One thing is clear, though. A solution must be found. And it will never be found in the bunker busters and drones and the Iron Dome and the David’s Sling. It cannot be found on a heap of 75,000 dead bodies. It can only be found in the hearts of people – both Arabs and Israelis. And all of us.
A people as intelligent, as enterprising, as cultured and innovative as the Israelis cannot allow themselves to fall in the eyes of humanity.
Omer Bartov’s book forces us to confront that moment of reckoning.
Forcefully, but with a great deal of compassion.
June 14, 2026
A book for our time that will certainly resonate the longer it has been published. I originally heard Omer Bartov on The New Yorker Radio Hour and immediately knew the importance of his voice in our time. Born in a kabutz in Israel, Bartov found his way to the United States after having served in the IDF and growing up in Israel. He is an academic voice, and one that rings with moral clarity, which I appreciate.
He delved into the issues with Israel—from its founding to its populace’s opinions on the Gaza Genocide, among the other settler violence and blunt acknowledgment of the realities of the Nakba. There were moments when I thought his rosy view of Zionism (in the form he claims it was meant to originally meant to be) fell a little short. His ideas on how to bring about peace in the Middle East today sounded a little idealistic, though he readily acknowledges it.
The truth is, Palestinians are living in an apartheid state. A genocide is unfolding. Israel suffers, itself, when it lets its most extreme transform the nation and its people into a radical state. There’s a lot to unpack from this book, but I learned a lot from it, from Israel’s lack of an official constitution (which Bartov believes could have solved a lot of problems—I’m more skeptical), to the truth of how the world’s relationship to the Holocaust features in today’s atrocities.
It’s important to say “never again” as exactly that, no peoples or nations excepted.
He delved into the issues with Israel—from its founding to its populace’s opinions on the Gaza Genocide, among the other settler violence and blunt acknowledgment of the realities of the Nakba. There were moments when I thought his rosy view of Zionism (in the form he claims it was meant to originally meant to be) fell a little short. His ideas on how to bring about peace in the Middle East today sounded a little idealistic, though he readily acknowledges it.
The truth is, Palestinians are living in an apartheid state. A genocide is unfolding. Israel suffers, itself, when it lets its most extreme transform the nation and its people into a radical state. There’s a lot to unpack from this book, but I learned a lot from it, from Israel’s lack of an official constitution (which Bartov believes could have solved a lot of problems—I’m more skeptical), to the truth of how the world’s relationship to the Holocaust features in today’s atrocities.
It’s important to say “never again” as exactly that, no peoples or nations excepted.
July 7, 2026
Perhaps it wasn’t ever the intention but this book didn’t really supply what I wanted. I found little to argue with in its core message but it smacked of a volume knitted together from previously published articles at short notice when a weightier, more methodical, chronological account of how Israel has gradually departed from the principles of some of its founders would have been more welcome. Hence, I found the book to be repetitive and, in that way, it may work as a polemic – progressive Israelis such as Ilan Pappé and Bartov are among the most valuable voices we have for justice – but if more time had been taken, it could have had more power. Of course the arguments are strong – and a final section outlining possible ways forward was perhaps the best in the book, even if the chances of reconciliation have little hope of coming to pass given the nature of the current government in Israel.
June 17, 2026
The title should be what is right in this book. Basically nothing. A complete zero and not worth anybody's attention or time. So much hypocrisy and misinformation exist out there regarding the nation of Israel it would fill volumes to untangle, and most people just do not take the time to try to understand the truth and the facts because of books like this let alone the constant narrative in the media. Just one little example: The Palestinians are the longest-lasting lavishly supported refugee population in the history of the world. In 1948 over 700,000 fled Israel because of the war which the Arab nations instigated by attacking the new nation. In response the United Nations created in 1949 UNRWA (United Nations Relief & Works Agency). It still exists today with an annual budget of over 1 billion dollars. It certainly has not solved any humanitarian crises as there is so much corruption within the organization and also associated with Hamas and others that do nothing for their own people. Enough said; and that is just one little example never mentioned or explored in this book.
June 27, 2026
A well-considered challenge to current thinking in Israel about the future of the “Palestinian problem,” delving deeply into issues of political inequality and the lack of enshrined civil liberties (for Israelis, as well, especially, as for Palestinians) dating from the creation of the state of Israel. A hard look at the current Israeli mindset from a leading genocide scholar, and a harsh condemnation of the present Israeli government and its actions after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, as well as the weak and inconsistent U.S. and world response. But ending on a note of hope, showing possible pathways forward. An important read right now!
July 8, 2026
Dobrze napisana książka. Polecam. Autor jest bardzo krytyczny wobec polityki i działań państwa izraelskiego względem Palestyńczyków, nie tracąc przy tym obiektywizmu i dokonując wnikliwej analizy przyczyn, które są bardzo złożone. Jedną z nich jest brak konstytucji i tymczasowość wielu rozwiązań ustrojowych stanowiących zagrożenie dla samego państwa. Polecam.
June 12, 2026
No easy answers, but takes an important hard look at the moral and logistic problems facing Israel.
May 4, 2026
This is a book about Israel-Palestine which is fair, level-headed, and humane in its approach, which is more than can be said than perhaps the majority of books about this topic (and certainly the vast majority of discussion about it on the internet and in the traditional media). For that alone, it warrants a recommendation.
There are those who believe that the situation is so dire, it calls for a tone of extreme anger bordering on hysteria, and the strongest, most hectoring language possible whenever talking about it. And I can understand why people think this, but I don’t respond to that kind of language. It alienates me and many others. I respond to those who write with a tone of nuance, empathy, and calmness, like a patient teacher who walks you through the facts one by one. Professor Omer Bartov writes in this style.
Israel: What Went Wrong, I fear, won’t do much to change the minds of those who cling stubbornly to the belief that Israel has done nothing wrong in Gaza. I also fear that some on the other side of the coin won’t like this book because it doesn’t support their cause as uncompromisingly as they would like, but that’s another conversation. Bartov was born and raised in Israel, and he has affection for his own people and homeland as we all do, even as he’s despondent about what it has become.
Perhaps I find the tone so refreshing because I read a book earlier this year, Genocide Bad by Sim Kern, which was the antithesis of this one. Sim Kern, a Tiktoker, undercut their message with the most off-putting and insufferable writing style imaginable, and failed to make a case that what is happening in Gaza must be described as a genocide despite stating that as their intention. Bartov, a professor of genocide studies, didn’t state that as his intention, but did it anyway. I was agnostic about the label of “genocide” before, and still was after reading Kern. After reading Bartov, I’m finding it harder to deny.
It’s a slim volume at 220 pages, so it’s not a comprehensive history of the conflict by any means. It could be treated as a collection of five essays, with an introduction and coda. The first is about the nature of Israel’s wars and the question of genocide, the second about the relationship between Zionism and antisemitism, the third about how the Holocaust’s memory is distorted to justify present-day atrocities, and the fourth about the slaughter of children in particular. The fifth chapter/essay is the longest and, unfortunately, the least interesting to me. It argues that if only Israel had adopted a constitution, as was the initial plan, things might not have gone so wrong. I wasn’t really convinced by his argument, since plenty of nations with constitutions have gone on to commit all kinds of human rights abuses anyway. But earlier in the book, Professor Bartov writes: “The reality on the ground is so devastating, and the future appears so bleak, that I have allowed myself to indulge in some counterfactual history and entertain some hopeful speculations about a different future.” So perhaps this chapter is Bartov’s way of musing about how things might have taken a different course for his homeland, and rekindling hope that Israel might eventually pull back from the brink and listen to its better angels. And I can’t begrudge him that.
So there are things that could have been subtracted from this book, and certainly much more could have been added. But for what it is, it’s well worth reading. In a sea of misinformation, oversimplification, bias, bigotry, confusion, and hatred, Israel: What Went Wrong is a concentrated dose of wisdom and moral clarity.
There are those who believe that the situation is so dire, it calls for a tone of extreme anger bordering on hysteria, and the strongest, most hectoring language possible whenever talking about it. And I can understand why people think this, but I don’t respond to that kind of language. It alienates me and many others. I respond to those who write with a tone of nuance, empathy, and calmness, like a patient teacher who walks you through the facts one by one. Professor Omer Bartov writes in this style.
Israel: What Went Wrong, I fear, won’t do much to change the minds of those who cling stubbornly to the belief that Israel has done nothing wrong in Gaza. I also fear that some on the other side of the coin won’t like this book because it doesn’t support their cause as uncompromisingly as they would like, but that’s another conversation. Bartov was born and raised in Israel, and he has affection for his own people and homeland as we all do, even as he’s despondent about what it has become.
Perhaps I find the tone so refreshing because I read a book earlier this year, Genocide Bad by Sim Kern, which was the antithesis of this one. Sim Kern, a Tiktoker, undercut their message with the most off-putting and insufferable writing style imaginable, and failed to make a case that what is happening in Gaza must be described as a genocide despite stating that as their intention. Bartov, a professor of genocide studies, didn’t state that as his intention, but did it anyway. I was agnostic about the label of “genocide” before, and still was after reading Kern. After reading Bartov, I’m finding it harder to deny.
It’s a slim volume at 220 pages, so it’s not a comprehensive history of the conflict by any means. It could be treated as a collection of five essays, with an introduction and coda. The first is about the nature of Israel’s wars and the question of genocide, the second about the relationship between Zionism and antisemitism, the third about how the Holocaust’s memory is distorted to justify present-day atrocities, and the fourth about the slaughter of children in particular. The fifth chapter/essay is the longest and, unfortunately, the least interesting to me. It argues that if only Israel had adopted a constitution, as was the initial plan, things might not have gone so wrong. I wasn’t really convinced by his argument, since plenty of nations with constitutions have gone on to commit all kinds of human rights abuses anyway. But earlier in the book, Professor Bartov writes: “The reality on the ground is so devastating, and the future appears so bleak, that I have allowed myself to indulge in some counterfactual history and entertain some hopeful speculations about a different future.” So perhaps this chapter is Bartov’s way of musing about how things might have taken a different course for his homeland, and rekindling hope that Israel might eventually pull back from the brink and listen to its better angels. And I can’t begrudge him that.
So there are things that could have been subtracted from this book, and certainly much more could have been added. But for what it is, it’s well worth reading. In a sea of misinformation, oversimplification, bias, bigotry, confusion, and hatred, Israel: What Went Wrong is a concentrated dose of wisdom and moral clarity.
June 4, 2026
Initially posted at my Substack:
What does it mean to be pro-Israel?
Historically, it may have meant supporting the Jewish people’s right to establish a state in Palestine in 1948 (78 years ago today, coincidentally). Zionism was indeed born as a national liberation movement to rescue Europe’s Jews from violence and discrimination decades before anyone had heard of Adolf Hitler. After the Holocaust, Zionism was an appeal to tolerance and mercy, an escape from oppression.
Today, “pro-Israel” could mean supporting the country’s right to exist in the face of implacable enemies who dream of destroying it, namely Hamas and Hezbollah.
A simple definition is: to support policies or conduct beneficial to Israel and its people. If Zionism no longer serves a positive purpose, but has instead become an irrational, violent, expansionist ideology threatening the very survival of Israel’s neighbors in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon, while wrecking the foundations of democracy within Israel itself, then it no longer makes sense to support Zionism.
It would also be wrong to equate support for (or disapproval of) the genocidal Netanyahu government of religious and nationalist maniacs with support for (or disapproval of) Israel itself. Do Americans who despise the Trump administration automatically become anti-American? Yet criticism of Netanyahu’s wars of annihilation — or publishing a New York Times exposé on the rape of Palestinian prisoners — provokes howls of “antisemitism” and “blood libel.”
Read more:
https://martindicaro.substack.com/p/z...
What does it mean to be pro-Israel?
Historically, it may have meant supporting the Jewish people’s right to establish a state in Palestine in 1948 (78 years ago today, coincidentally). Zionism was indeed born as a national liberation movement to rescue Europe’s Jews from violence and discrimination decades before anyone had heard of Adolf Hitler. After the Holocaust, Zionism was an appeal to tolerance and mercy, an escape from oppression.
Today, “pro-Israel” could mean supporting the country’s right to exist in the face of implacable enemies who dream of destroying it, namely Hamas and Hezbollah.
A simple definition is: to support policies or conduct beneficial to Israel and its people. If Zionism no longer serves a positive purpose, but has instead become an irrational, violent, expansionist ideology threatening the very survival of Israel’s neighbors in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon, while wrecking the foundations of democracy within Israel itself, then it no longer makes sense to support Zionism.
It would also be wrong to equate support for (or disapproval of) the genocidal Netanyahu government of religious and nationalist maniacs with support for (or disapproval of) Israel itself. Do Americans who despise the Trump administration automatically become anti-American? Yet criticism of Netanyahu’s wars of annihilation — or publishing a New York Times exposé on the rape of Palestinian prisoners — provokes howls of “antisemitism” and “blood libel.”
Read more:
https://martindicaro.substack.com/p/z...
June 14, 2026
A book I didn’t know I needed and somehow have been waiting for, for years. Clear-eyed and still deeply compassionate. Fair. Tough. Well-researched and grounded in recent history. Bartov lays out the evidence of Israel’s commission of genocide and ethnic-cleansing while Israeli Jews look away and make excuses, and he showcases how profound gaps in the legal framework for the state of Israel have enabled this. His analysis of the flaws within the “state of Israel” therefore helps chart a path towards peace and reconciliation.
April 29, 2026
I thought this was excellent. I haven’t read much in any detail about the history of Israel, so for me this was excellent. He highlights a lot of critical aspects, such as the fact that Israel was created without boundaries (and how that happened).
I also appreciated his ideas and predictions for the future (even though they were sobering). He actually suggests that Germany tries to play a key role in brokering the future of Israel/Palestine, as a type or atonement for the Holocaust (and because it’s unclear what the US will do, if anything).
I also appreciated his ideas and predictions for the future (even though they were sobering). He actually suggests that Germany tries to play a key role in brokering the future of Israel/Palestine, as a type or atonement for the Holocaust (and because it’s unclear what the US will do, if anything).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews